Robert Tyler

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Nov, 2019

Stories (4)

4 Stories

101 karma pts

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“VEIN INTO DARK” by Robert Tyler

Submitted to Contest #92

Sword and hockey helmet, Lot’s ready to go. His arms swing down from the Sun and slice through the razor wire. He sheathes, bends, sighs, and lifts the heavy log to his waist. He wraps his hairy arms around the hot bark. With one ram, he breaks through the barrier to the cave.  “Doh! A guard!” Lot squeals at the tiny knife hole in his side. “Ah-ha! Another one!”  With a battle grin, Lot prances, cheerfully swatting at the two sentinels with his sword. He decapitates what’s left and steps over the bodies. “Peeee-youuu…” he wh...

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“Happy and Seahorse” by Robert Tyler

Submitted to Contest #90

The night of the same day I arrived on her planet, she sat me down to see her stars. On a rock at the top of a high hill above her underground home, she turned my chin toward the southwest.  And there it was---the peculiar constellation she’d promised me that afternoon. A formation of twelve stars tracing a minimal and yet strangely exuberant pattern. A sparse caricature ready to fully consecrate the perceptive observer. As it happened, the twelve stars seen from this planet form a happy face. No wonder these people destroyed their...

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“Between The Bars” by Robert Tyler

Submitted to Contest #60

I learned to crawl alongside a dead baby. The poor thing got its ankle leash caught on the base of the drinking fountain. Squealed for days, then became a stain right here in the middle of the hall, stinking and sinking into the cement while I scooted around collecting up all the new stuff for my parents. I’d clutch on, they’d reel me back. I was a fishing hook.  I could collect these things for my parents only because Dead Baby hadn’t lived long enough to collect them for hers. She was sent through the bars before me. Too soon. Too y...

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“If I Wasn't Smelling Gas” by Robert Tyler

Submitted to Contest #15

I’m above them. Bouncing on my tiny circus bike tires. Front wheel, then back. Bunny hopping from one roof edge to another. Spinning without holding my handlebars. Pedaling through their hanging laundry and leaving black marks on their ventilation hoods. They’re amazed. Mouths wide open. But they still don’t quite see that I’m impossible. So I crank up some speed and jump through high air toward the opposing roof top. Backflip with half twist and I land on my front wheel, stopping like this to pulse with the pressure reverberations in t...

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Author bio

About: By day I'm an earth and planetary scientist. I specialize in dynamics, the study of motion, and do this from a motionless posture in a windowless office at a NASA center. I ply through tedious calculations to better understand the tides in Europa's ocean, the jets on Jupiter, and, most engagingly, the drastically irreversible effects of the climate change we are bringing about on this planet. Occupation: Physicist Disclaimer: The irresponsible, unrealistic, childish, and downright unprofessional views expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of NASA or the University of Maryland. Interests: I'm very well educated in the inhumanities (Ph.D., McGill U.) but remain a student of creative fiction because facts don't appear to hold all the answers. Publications: In non-fiction, I am published in top science journals (e.g. Science, Nature). In fiction, I have short stories here on Reedsy, and a self-published novel Circus Planetaria on Amazon.